


the greatest loves of all time are over now

by ventmethis



Series: Folklore Songfic Series [1]
Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Folklore, Headcanon, Heartbreak, Love, Marriage, Sad, Taylor Swift - Freeform, but also not really headcanon, relationships, the 1 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ventmethis/pseuds/ventmethis
Summary: Very angsty take on the season 7/season 8 marriage fiasco.Jackie and Hyde inspired by "The 1" on Folklore.
Relationships: Jackie Burkhart/Michael Kelso, Jackie Burkhart/Steven Hyde
Series: Folklore Songfic Series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851706
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	the greatest loves of all time are over now

**Author's Note:**

> This is part one to my Folklore inspired songfic series. 
> 
> Obviously this is about Jackie and Hyde, mostly head canon but with a few switches here and there to better fit the song and to also maybe make you hurt a little more.

**_And if you wanted me, you really should’ve showed_ **

There’s a dull ache throughout her entire body and she can’t remember a time she has ever felt this broken down, this sad, this hopeless. Jackie’s used to getting her way, but she knows this is different. This isn’t like asking for money or pretty, expensive jewelry. This is her heart and her future, and none of it is certain.

When she asked Hyde to say something, anything, the last thing she wanted to hear was, “have a good trip.”

And maybe she should have expected it from him, because no matter how much she thinks they have progressed and no matter how good they are together, at the end of the day he is still Steven Hyde. The very same Steven Hyde who will always be shut off to the world, afraid to show his emotions to anyone - even Jackie who has been there for him through it all.

Jackie can’t help but think she deserves better than this. Of course, she knows that she hasn’t always been the best girlfriend, or the easiest girlfriend, but she loves him and she thought he loved her too. This wouldn’t be the first time she’s been brutally wrong about everything. She just wished she hadn’t been.

And now she’s in the passenger seat of Kelso’s van on her way to Chicago and she has never felt so empty. And she’s furious that she’s on her way to living out her dreams and it feels like it doesn’t matter because Hyde isn’t by her side and she can’t believe she has given a boy the power to make her feel this way.

If Kelso sees her wiping away her tears as they take their bags into the hotel room, he doesn’t say anything and she’s grateful for that. He may not be the brightest, but he knows Jackie well enough to know when he should or should not say something.

Whilst Jackie wasn’t all that excited to have Kelso accompanying her to Chicago, she had to admit it felt nice to have him there. She was scared he would be insufferable about the entire thing, but he’s been a good distraction for her.

Distractions mean nothing to her anymore, however, when Hyde walks in the door only a few hours after they arrive at the hotel. Kelso stepped out to get ice and for a brief moment, it was just her and Hyde staring at each other.

She’d be lying if she said that excitement didn’t pool in her stomach. He came after her. He followed her to Chicago. Hyde has never been good with words, but this isn’t the first time and he has showed his true feelings with his actions. And this is everything to her.

As Jackie gets off the bed and walks closer to him, they never drop their eye contact.

“Steven, you came,” she says, approaching him fully. She wants to hug him and kiss him and thank him, but there’s still a part of her that is terrified of this ending full throttle.

“Yeah, I just...” he starts to speak, but it’s short willed when Kelso walks through the door in only a towel with the bucket of ice.

Jackie knows he was only in a towel because he was about to get in the shower when she asked him to go get ice for her coke, but Hyde has never been very understanding when it comes to her and Kelso. Ever since that first incident at the funeral, the insecurities that Hyde has towards Kelso and Jackie’s previous and current relationship have been very apparent.

Jackie isn’t even able to get a word out before Hyde is chasing Kelso out of the room and suddenly all of her excitement is gone, the sinking feel taking up residency in her stomach once again.

It doesn’t take long before Hyde is back in the room, holding the towel that was wrapped around Kelso’s waist, and locking the door.

Jackie is sat on the bed, looking up at him with tears in her eyes.

“Steven, I promise, it’s not what it looks like. He was just going to sho—” but he doesn’t let her finish.

“Yeah, yeah. I know how it goes with you two, he’s your first love or whatever, nothing ever going on there.”

She wipes away the tear that falls from her eye, “that’s not fair at all. It isn’t like that. I am completely over him, he just offered to drive me out here. You know that there is absolutely nothing going on with him. I am yours, I will always be yours, Steven.”

Hyde nods in response and takes a place next to her on the bed. He scratches his head, trying to deny his own sinking feeling, and says, “sure thing.”

And now Jackie is getting frustrated, because this entire thing is his fault to begin with. “The only reason he’s even here, or that I’m even here, is because you didn’t want me to stay. You didn’t want to be with me, Steven, and you made that painfully obvious. Michael was being a good friend and came with me so I wouldn’t be alone when I’m in a vulnerable position. You don’t get to be mad or accusatory towards me.”

Hyde doesn’t necessarily agree with that statement, but he knows how badly he hurt her and he doesn’t want to say anything to make it worse. Not when he came here to have a real conversation with her about them.

“Look Jackie,” he starts, “I don’t want to argue here. I really just wanted to have a mature conversation for once. I wanted to talk about us and about what you moving to Chicago means for us. But seeing this… I don’t know, man.”

Jackie will forever deny it, but she gets off the bed and gets down on her knees in front of him, placing her hands on his knees. She’s crying and Hyde hates it. She has almost always made him weaker than he’d like to admit and seeing her cry only makes it worse.

“Steven, I don’t know how to get you to believe me but nothing was happening with Michael, and nothing was going to happen. Steven, I want to marry you. I want to have a family with you. I know I want a lot from life but none of it means anything if it isn’t with you. Please, I am so sorry. This was all wrong place wrong time, but I love you and I want to have that conversation with you.”

He grabs her hands in his own, rubbing his thumb along the top of her hands. He’s trying his best to balance all of his emotions and not let his anger get the best of him. But doing that means removing himself from the situation for the time being.

Hyde bites on his bottom lip, contemplating what he’s going to say. He lets out a sigh before saying, “I love you too, you already know that. But right now, I have to think. I’m freaking pissed, man. It’s always going to be Kelso that you run to when things get hard for you, and I just need to think. So I’m going to go. And we’ll talk about this, but just not right now. For now, I’m leaving.”

He lets go of her hands and stands up, patting his jeans before walking towards the door. Jackie scrambles to get up as well, wiping away all of the tears in an attempt to dry her cheeks.

“I’m not running to him because it got hard for me. I told you he was just coming with me to give me a ride and make sure I wasn’t alone. This is so much more than just things getting hard, Steven. I told you I’d stay for you,” she chokes out a sob, wiping her tears again, “I told you I’d give up everything for you if you had just told me to. If you told me you saw a future for us. I just needed reassurance. Steven, you broke my heart and it was _easy_ for you.”

His hand is on the doorknob now, and he’s looking at his feet.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he says and then opens the door.

“Steven, please do not walk out on me right now. Please.”

To nobody’s surprise, he walks out the door and shuts it behind him.

-

**_In my defense I have none, for never leaving well enough alone_ **

“Steven, you went and got married.” Jackie’s pacing pack and forth, fingers in her hair whilst Hyde sits on the couch, fingers intertwined, staring at the ground.

“You told me, more than once, that you didn’t want to get married. We literally broke up because you didn’t want to get married. But it wasn’t that you didn’t want to get married, was it? You just didn’t want to get married to me, right?”

He opens his mouth to disagree, but he doesn’t get the chance before she’s back at it.

“You followed me to Chicago, made me think we had a chance, a future. You saw Michael and assumed the worst and left to get freaking married.”

“Jackie, I didn’t leave to get married. I don’t even remember marrying her. I was hurt so I got wasted and now here we are.”

Jackie scoffs, angry and sad and confused. “I don’t understand how this happened. How did we get here, Steven?”

Hyde doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have anything he can say. He knows he dropped the ball with this one and he knows how badly she must be hurting. He doesn’t ever like to admit that he’s wrong, but he knows in his head and his heart that he royally fucked up and he doesn’t think anything can fix this.

Jackie takes a seat next to him on the couch and stares blankly at the TV, neither of them saying anything. It feels as though ten minutes has passed before she opens her mouth again.

“When she said she was your wife, I… I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I’ve been lied to and I’ve been cheated on and I’ve been through hell with my parents and with you and with Michael, but nothing will ever compare to the way that felt.”

Hyde hears her sniffle and his heart sinks even further down, something he didn’t even know was possible.

He turns to face her and says, “Jackie, I don’t have any words. I know that nothing I say will ever be enough. I could spend the rest of my life apologizing to you, but it wouldn’t be enough.”

She nods sadly, still staring at the TV.

“I blame myself, you know?” It’s a whisper and he barely hears her.

“Why?”

“I can’t help but think if I had just been happy with what we had, we wouldn’t be in this situation. But I pushed you and I kept pushing you, even after knowing it was never going to change.” She pauses to let out a shaky breath before continuing. “Marriage was always my dream, you know that. But when I thought about my future and what it looked like, all I ever saw was you. There were no technicalities. There wasn’t a particular career or some magical wedding. It was just me and you. But I still pushed the idea onto you and by the time I had finally given it up, it was too late. You were already out the door.”

“C’mon Jackie—” he starts, but she cuts him off with a shake of her head and she stands up.

“Don’t say anything Steven, don’t worry about it. I’m going to go spend some much needed time with myself, and we’ll see what happens.”

She leans down and gives him a soft kiss on the cheek, just like she used to do before they were ever together and it feels like karma is twisting the knife that has been planted in his guts for days. Hyde watches her walk out the door of the basement and he doesn’t think there is anything left in him to break.

_-_

**_If one thing had been different, would everything be different today?_ **

They’re sitting across from each other at The Hub, neither of them really saying anything. It’s been two weeks since Sam showed up and finding time alone has been difficult. With the both of them avoiding each other and Sam’s constant presence, having this discussion wasn’t something either of them were looking forward to.

Jackie feels like there’s something caught in her throat making her physically unable to speak. She’s also scared that if she tries, she’ll throw up. She’s been doing that a lot these days; she’s never done well with sadness.

Hyde is messing with the lid on his cup of soda, popping the lid off and pushing it back on.

“Listen, Jackie, I’ve been replaying our conversation over and over. And I just want you to know that what you said about this all being your fault, that’s not true.”

She bites her bottom lip and fights back her tears. She’s tired of crying and she’s tired of hurting and she’s just tired. Everything in her life has flipped upside down over the last three weeks and she doesn’t know how to handle any of it.

She still doesn’t say anything so he continues, “I just think somehow we got it wrong. We’re both at two different places in life and we got it mixed up. It’s neither of our faults.”

Jackie scoffs and shakes her head, “for someone who ran off and got married after promising to talk to me about our relationship you sure do lack accountability.”

He sets the cup down on the table, annoyed. “I wanted to have—”

“A mature conversation, I know. Sorry. But please forgive me if I’m a little upset at the fact that we broke up because I wanted to get married eventually and you turned around married someone else, all within a week.”

“I know, and I’ve said I messed up. I already told you I won’t ever be able to apologize enough for it.”

It’s silent again, both of them staring at anything but each other.

When Jackie asks her next question, Hyde is thankful for his sunglasses because they’re hiding the tears that well up in his eyes.

“If you uh, if you could go back in time, in our relationship, what part would you change? For us to have ended up any way but this. What is one thing that could have been different to change this outcome?”

When he shrugs, she realizes this conversation is over. She stands up from the table and grabs her purse, ready to leave The Hub.

“Yeah, I guess maybe you’re right. Maybe it was always going to end this way.”

_-_

**_But we were something, don’t you think so?_ **

Jackie doesn’t know how they’ve managed to end up sitting alone together in the basement when just five minutes ago the entire gang was sitting in here with them.

“So, you and Fez huh?” Hyde asks.

Jackie’s sitting on the couch playing with her fingers when she says, “I thought maybe, but I’ve been in and out of some sort of relationship since I was 14. I think I just wanted someone to be there. But I’m going to try to just be on my own. I deserve that.”

Hyde nods and it’s quiet for a moment.

“And you and Samantha?”

He knows he shouldn’t say it, but he does it anyway. “She’s no Jackie Burkhart, but she’ll do.”

And seeing the look on her face, he immediately regrets saying it.

“Don’t do that, Steven. It’s not funny, it’s not endearing, it’s not cute.” She’s angry and he understands why.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I think about that a lot though.” Hyde knows that’s not what he should be saying either, but it’s hard when it’s constantly on his mind and he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it.

“I get it, I do. You’re on my mind a lot too. I replay old conversations in my head a lot. I try to remember all of our good times, but then that hurts me too much. So then I think about this last month, hoping I’ll just start hating you. But that hurts too.” This time she isn’t crying and she thinks it’s because she doesn’t really have any tears left to cry.

Hyde lets out a soft chuckle, more in disbelief than for comedic purposes. “We had a lot of good times, didn’t we?”

Jackie nods in response and says, “yeah, we were pretty powerful. I felt like for a while we were undefeatable.”

“I know I don’t really have the right to say this, but I don’t think I’ll ever find someone like you, Jackie. I still don’t know how you managed tie me around your finger, but you did.”

Jackie motions her head upstairs where everyone else is. “Well now you have Samantha. When are you filing for annulment?”

Hyde shrugs, a terrible feeling slowly taking over his body. Anxiety maybe. Wearily, he replies and says, “I don’t love her. I barely even like her.”

When she looks at him, he can see the sadness in her eyes and it’s the worst thing he’s ever seen and he hates himself for it.

“That doesn’t answer my question, Steven.”

His response is as simple as, “I know.” And they both, deep down, know what it means. 

_-_

**_And it would’ve been sweet, if it could’ve been me // but it would’ve been fun, if you would’ve been the one_ **

Donna doesn’t think she’s ever seen Jackie this broken. It has been an hour of Jackie laying with her head in Donna’s lap silently crying whilst Donna plays with her hair.

An hour ago, Donna brought Jackie over to her house to tell her the news.

“Donna, please tell me you’re lying.” Jackie felt like she couldn’t breathe. She could feel the last bit of her heart shattering throughout her entire body.

Donna almost wanted to cry looking at Jackie, watching as her world crumbled around her. “I am so sorry Jackie. He told the guys he wasn’t filing for an annulment, some stupid bullshit about not wanting to be like his dad and leave his wife.”

Jackie didn’t really think any of her situation with Hyde could get worse, but it could and it did. She wonders what sort of bad energy she put into the universe for this to happen to her.

And now an hour later, they’re on the couch and Jackie has never felt more empty.

“Donna, she…” Jackie heaves, trying to get the words out, “she got everything I wanted. Everything he said he couldn’t give me, he’s giving her.”

“I know hun, I know.” Donna continued to run her fingers through her hair.

Jackie sniffles and continues, “that was supposed to be me. He was supposed to marry me. He was supposed to be my soulmate – the fairytale I always wanted – my happily ever after, Donna.”

“Jackie, I know this isn’t something you want to hear, but you have always been so far out of his league. We all joke and tease, but you are exceptional. You are smart and funny and when you love someone, you give them everything. He was never going to deserve you.”

There’s a sob in her throat that she’s trying her hardest not to let out. “That’s what everyone says, Donna, but I don’t care about any of that. I never cared about his status versus mine. He was it for me, Donna. And I just, I don’t understand how I wasn’t enough for him. Why wasn’t I the one? It should have been me.”

“You’re right, it should have. You should have been the one.”


End file.
